


Metaphysics of a Marionette

by Levi8



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel True Forms (Supernatural), Angel Wings, Castiel (Supernatural)'s True Form, Castiel (Supernatural)-centric, Castiel in the Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Charlie Bradbury in the Men of Letters Bunker, Dean Winchester Bears the Mark of Cain, Episode: s10e17 Inside Man, Episode: s10e18 Book of the Damned, Extended Metaphors, Gen, Metaphysics, Souls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-09-27 00:47:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17152154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Levi8/pseuds/Levi8
Summary: First I had a metaphor, then I had a plot bunny, now i have a fan-fic.The fic:Who knew telling the truth just once could change the journey so much, even if the destination remained the same?The metaphor:"Sooo, too long didn't read version..." Cas tilted his head unsure as to what Charlie was saying, "Demons operate human vessels internally just like they would have as a human, and angels operate human vessels externally, right?" He thought about it for a moment,"Yes, that is quite accurate."





	1. The Road Less Traveled By

**Author's Note:**

> Been a while since I've written like this, back in the fanfiction.net days. Don't even remember my username, so here I am.  
> I had most of chapter two (the extended metaphor) written before the plot bunny hopped along. The plot bunny is this first chapter. Second chapter still needs some editing as does chapter three (more plot bunny's... you know how these things go).
> 
> Unbeta'd obvs.
> 
> Begins at end of the Book of the Damned

"Hey, look who decided to show." Dean chuckled as he carried in the pizza. Glad for the win that was long overdue.  
  
"So? You're back?" Cas bowed shortly, a rare smile on his face. That was a win too.   
  
"100%?" Just to confirm it. Cas nodded as he walked by.   
  
"So how'd that happen?"   
  
Cas had already made his decision, but as he saw the smile on Dean's face, that decision almost crumbled. He almost lied and said that Hannah had gotten the location of his grace out of Metatron. If only to keep that smile on Dean's face, if only to keep his soul calm and not agitate either Dean or his soul… Neither had much rest these days.   
  
Castiel had the foresight to create a defense against such quickly made and short term decisions though; forced perspective though an unpleasant memory. All he had to do was bring up the memory of being trapped in a ring of holy fire, the look of betrayal on Deans face and his soul folding in on itself unnaturally in grief.   
  
He looked at Sam and for the briefest of seconds, he considered his options. But he was done with it, done with the lying. He bowed his head toward Sam in apology and quickly looking away, missing Sam's smile of encouragement of all things. Cas couldn't lie to Dean, not again… Especially not now. Castiel cleared his throat, a habit now more than a need.   
  
"Um, I asked Bobby for help." Dean set the pizza down on the table, turning back to face Cas.   
  
"What?" Dean was confused, his soul already showing signs of turmoil. What was the phrase… Ripping the Band-Aid off?   
  
"I have been officially exiled from Heaven. I found a medium and asked Bobby for help to break me into Heaven. We got Metatron out and took  his grace. Once he was human he was far easier to read. He knew nothing about The Mark, but he did know where the rest of my grace was. Metatron was far more forthcoming with information once he had a bullet in his leg. I've got my grace back, but in the resulting blast he escaped with the demon tablet." Castiel took a much needed breath. He was avoiding everyone's eyes, especially Dean's. Even so he could still see the glow of Dean's soul sparking in distress. Not for the first time Castiel found himself wishing that Dean's soul was as muted as the rest of humanity.   
  
"In the meantime, I was hoping to stay… Here… for a short time, given my current lack of um, home. If that would be alright." It was just one sentence, but Castiel's eyes gravitated back to Dean's, his writhing soul suddenly calming as quickly as it had begun flailing. In such a state Castiel's hope rose unbidden, fairly certain he would be welcomed…   
  
But after everything he had just said, he wouldn't be surprised if they both kicked him out this time. Dean would kick him out for doing something that they had all agreed against, and Sam would kick him out for for telling the truth. How the tides had changed between the brothers Winchester.   
  
Dean shot a look at Sam who was nodding enthusiastically. Castiel abruptly found himself with an arms full of Dean Winchester for a moment.   
  
"You stay as long as you like buddy. Pick a room. Make it yours." Castiel took another deep breath. Dean kept it a quick hug before Cas could retaliate and continued,   
  
"Mi casa es su casa Cas!" Sam quickly followed with,   
  
"Right, same to you Charlie!" Dean smiled and looked at Charlie and Sam, both with smiles still on their faces.   
  
"Thank you, both of you." Cas sighed out in relief. Charlie quickly punched Castiel's other arm with agreement.   
  
"Ditto!" Both Dean and Sam chuckled as Cas rolled his eyes again at forcefully making his body give so that they wouldn’t break their hand.

“Come on Bitches, let's eat before the pizza get cold!”

Cas was reassured to an extent, but for as quiet as Dean's soul now stood, his eyes remained anxious. He knew this dinner was a respite desperately needed. He also knew his explanation had not simply been accepted at face value. Cas could live with that for now.   


	2. A Broken Wing with the Withered Leaves

They all sat down and all but Castiel began chowing down, Cas sighting just how terrible individual molecules tasted. Charlie was more than confused at the moment, having noticed the look between Sam and Cas before he just uploaded a paragraph that Dean clearly hadn’t processed yet. Smart way to go where Dean was concerned, they’d all probably pay for it later, but she wasn’t currently worried about later. She was currently worried about right now, and how stuffy Cas looked for just having asked to stay. Charlie didn’t pretend to know everything that went on with the Winchesters, Castiel included, but she talked to Dean enough to know how it looked; poised to stay but just as likely to flap off to Timbuktu without prior notice, broken wings or not. So, mouth full of pizza, she said what any self respecting host would say, that Dean needed his wing woman to say for him.

“Dude relax, take your coat off, stay a while.” She sneaked a look at Dean who nodded his head in agreement. At which point it was only fair to ask Dean about Castiels blatant lack of alternative clothes, “Speaking of, why have you not introduced him to flannel?”

“Why the hell are you asking me that?” Mouth also full of pizza with his CYA MO of ridicule and deflection.

“You dragged him to a den of iniquity, you can introduce him to flannel.” She said mildly incredulous that flannel landed them in deflection territory at all.

“Prostitutes and flannel are not even the same realm!”

“I'm sorry Dean, you did what? When?” Sam asked somewhere between horrified and amused. Castiel had recovered from his flush of embarrassment, which was relatively adorable all things considered.

“It's not of import, and Charlie it's not for lack of trying, it's just, it didn't fit right.” Sam glared daggers at Dean as Dean studiously ignored the imaginary flames of disapproval.

“Flannel... doesn't fit right? Flannel fits everyone!" She eyed Dean more thoroughly. He had taken her out for FBI suit montage, even if the music had been vetoed. Surely he hadn’t been so short with Cas. She looked back at Castiel and asked, “Did he really try?”

“He gave me some of his own to try, I didn't end up using them.” The look on Deans face had her about ready to abort. There was definitely something else here that she didn't know about. It wasn't the flannel itself that landed them in deflection territory. She looked at Sam who noticed it too. Yeah that was a powder keg she didn't really want to try diffusing right now. Aborting that line of questioning in 3... 2... 1...

“Well of course it didn't fit!” She pointed the remaining crust of her current slice of pizza at Castiel, “You and I are going shopping! You are getting flannel. There will be a montage and there will be music.”

“That is not necessary.” She continued eating the rest of her crust. Sam was apparently going for complete hands off the powder keg option, rather than trying to help actively avoid it, and Dean clearly wasn’t going to be backing her up.

“You stick out like a sore thumb. I read the books, trust me you do. If you are sticking around, you gotta work with us here.” She implored. Dean snorted grabbing his third slice of pizza from the box..

“It's a losing battle Charlie, Cas likes his trench coat and angel suit.” She sighed. Taking the cut wire for what it was. Powder keg, yes. Active bomb, no.

“Fine. Still coat off, stay a while”

“You just want to wear it don’t you” Sam piped in, finally.

“Um no! Of course not, maybe. I mean, I’d wait a couple weeks before I’d actually ask.” Dean emitted some form of indignant snort while Sam chortled. The angel just smirked, glancing at Dean briefly who now had his eye brows raised. He stood up and took the trench coat off and handed it to a stunned Charlie.

“I want it back though.”Charlie looked at it as if it was a dead frog in science class. Sam saw that Cas still had had that smirk on his face, like he knew she wasn’t going to take it. Sam hadn’t seen that particular smirk since Cas had been in the Civil War with Rafael. Charlie made no move to take it and after a moment, he placed it smartly on the back of his chair.

“Better?” He was looking at charlie, but Sam quickly realized that smirk had since made itself known, when Cas had come back and cleaned up from purgatory… Sam took a gulp of beer as he glanced over to his brother. Yep, similar reaction to. And Cas probably had no idea… he might, but he kind of doubted it at this point.

“Much!” Charlie smiled and went back to eating her pizza as Cas sat back down. Dean pulled himself from a wicked sense of deja vu.

“Cas, she does have a point, if you want we can go shopping and get you stuff that actually fits, no montage required.”

"Thank you for the offer, but It's not as simple as wanting a change of clothes anymore" They all looked at him puzzled. Dean asked,

"Care to share with the class?"

Castiel sighed, not really wanting to get into this, not after so long adjusting to his vessel… his body. He was almost positive that aside from his newly returned grace powered abilities, Dean had almost forgotten just what he is. That he isn’t something inhuman in a human shape, but that he is something other that is just controlling a human shaped being. Or at least, that’s what it use to be, it was different now, having been as close to human as an Angel could be on more than one occasion.

He could find a way to brush this off easily, but he found himself not wanting to. He wanted them to understand. He wanted Dean to understand. They are family, all three of them, perhaps four now with Charlie. Brothers Dean calls him, but Castiel has many siblings. What Castiel shared with them is nothing like what he shares with Dean, or Sam for that matter. He wanted them to understand just what they had in their midst. If he phrased it right, and that was a very big if (even having been human some euphamistic language still escaped his understanding) then he could just ease the truth out. One big info dump with a reassurance of sort at the end. Perhaps… perhaps if he could create a precedent for telling the truth, uncomfortable truth followed by a request for things to stay as they are, maybe Dean wouldn’t be so quick to jump to conclusions at the first hint of something outside his standard box of abnormal. It was a tall order, something that would likely take years of practice, exercise, and reinforcement... It was a terrible idea given that he didn’t even know the real results of what he’d told Dean earlier about Metatron. Still… Cas still wanted them to understand.

Sam breaks the ice as he so often does, "Cas?" Decision made, no ring of fire memory required.

"This is a vast oversimplification and an incomplete metaphor, but it's the closest thing I can think of. All human bodies are like sock puppets. Each body, generally speaking aside from supernatural means… Or mistakes on my part... is controlled by a soul." Dean snorted and Sam was about to refute him while Charlie, none the wiser, didn’t know what he was refering to. He charged forward, paying no attention to them.

"In this case the sock puppet is to a human body as the hand that controls the puppet is to the automatic functions of the body. If you have a hand in a sock puppet that isn't controlled by a brain, then the hand doesn't do much aside from keeping the sock puppet in shape. In this case the soul is the brain that controls the hand." He looked up at Charlie, then to Sam to make sure at least he was following, Sam nodded. He didn't bother looking at Dean. Dean was far smarter than anyone, aside from perhaps Bobby, could tell. Regardless though of if he was following or not, he would look confused, because being smart was Sam’s thing.

"Demons essentially stuff themselves in with the hand that is already controlling the sock puppet, and take control of it themselves, many times breaking the hand currently in control in the process."

"Kinky"

"Dean, Really?" Charlie headed them both off, before they could get into an argument.

“Shut up both of you, this is interesting!” Cas ignored the brothers, encouraged by Charlies prodding.

"Angel's don't work like Demons do though. Angels are more like the cross rod and strings of a marionette. On a marionette, my grace would be the cross rod, but my sense of self would be the strings. My grace was cut away, I had a body and I had me… The strings. I could cut away another marionettes cross rod and tie the strings to it, but without being properly secured the cross rod could pull my strings off the marionette and my strings could pull off of the cross rod. There are no re-ties, just other cross rods"

"Wait, the borrowed mojo, it wasn't making you sick, it was tearing you appart!" Cas nodded saddened, fully prepared for Dean's mark filled rage as his Soul sparked to life in anger. He had been doing so well.

"But you have your cross rod back now right?" Sam quickly started hoping to forgo any disaster in front of Charlie, she had already seen so much, he knew Dean didn't want her to see him like that anymore. Deans soul simmered, the mark throbbing, begging for attention. Cas realised he had to push through quickly if he wanted the evening to remain pleasant.

Cas nodded, agreeing with Sams statement, but there was a troubling caveat. "I do. The problem is, I used to be a cross rod with strings attached to a body. After the past couple of years I'm more of a body with strings attached to a cross rod… It's securely fastened now, but it's like a muscle I haven't used in a while, some of it is muscle memory so to speak, healing, manifesting my angel blade, it's easy. Those are thing that both my mind and my grace retained, but there are a lot of things that my grace retained that my brain could not… The human mind wasn't built to carry the memory of the universe and its history in its entirety" Dean choked on his beer, soul cowed back, starting to settle again. and Cas barely subdued a smirk. All at once smug and full of sorrow. He'd never mentioned his age before, he hoped that still got the vastness of age across. Knowing Sam, and even hardly knowing Charlie, they probably understood. Dean probably didn't want to, so he likely wouldn't. Castiel continued, still avoiding everyone eyes, "it will take a while for me to grasp my memories again… As is, my cross bar is fairly brittle, I dont know how many times it has been torn apart and put back together by Naomi, by God, the Leviathans. But I know it's not nearly as strong as the cross rods I borrowed, I dont know how long it will take to get it all back. It's just… Going to take a while. Until I am sure that everything is fastened properly.... that my strings and my cross rod aren't going to break, the suit and over coat are acting like a metaphysical anchor to both body and cross rod."

"So… Too long didn't read version..." Cas tilted his head unsure as to what Charlie was saying, "Demons operate human vessels internally just like they would as a human and angels operate human vessels externally, right?" He thought about it for a moment,

"Yes, that is quite accurate."

“But right now, you are more human with super powers than you are angel stuck in three dimensional representation of yourself.”

“Yes” Castiel nodded, impressed and not at all surprised that Dean and Sam had taken such a liking to Charlie. The little sister they never wanted.

"Doesn't explain why you can't just ditch Jimmy's old suite for a bit, I mean, you just took off your trenchcoat" Dean asked, in that way of his that wasn’t asking so much as it was telling what he had on his mind.

“Yes, but it is still quite nearby me. So the effect is minimal. If it were further from me at the moment, it would likely cause further disturbances.”

“Have we tried this out, or do you just know.” Sam ever the practical one offered.

“When I received the first batch of… borrowed grace, I was quite suddenly reacquainted with my true form after having ignored it for several years, and having all sense of it cut off for the duration of my humanity. It was disorienting to suddenly be able to see 50 miles away in every direction of everything physical and supernatural. I felt like a newborn foal. I searched out a new overcoat out because it was familiar and easy to anchor myself to. If Jimmy were still alive, I could have just anchored myself to his soul, but he's long gone.” There was a lot to dissect there, but one thing stood out in particular.

“50 miles!” Charlie’s jaw dropped slightly.

“Roughly.”

“You really are as tall as the sears building then?” Castiel was honestly impressed that Dean remembered that.

“I was unfamiliar with the proper execution of hyperbole at the time, so yes I was not joking.”

“How do you condense into… well” Castiel smiled patiently, almost happily to answer Charlie’s curiosity. It was… It was refreshing.

“Initially it’s more or less just like the human that controls the marionette, there is no “condensing,” but if it makes more sense, you could think of it as origami with light, rather than paper. Light folding in on itself to cover every bone, every muscle, every synapse, every automatic function, and every manual function create folds in that origami piece. Every function, or fold… needs to be ready to fold in or out or move at a moments notice.”

“The marionette metaphor I can get… but don’t, don’t compare yourself to a cootie catcher, please.”

“A what?”

“Sam, gimme a napkin. Dean gimme a pen.”


	3. The Door with No Lock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ended up with three different versions of this. The final one... this one, ended up requiring a fourth chapter to finish up all the things I wanted to explain.

Charlie had settled in to the guest room for the moment, and Cas had said picking rooms could wait for the morning, he didn’t sleep after all. The nerd was probably in the library. Sam went off to bed as well, likely having as much luck sleeping as Dean was if his funk during dinner was anything to go by. The past couple of days had been a wooden roller coaster; up, down, left, right, and all of it teeth rattling. Between Rowena, Crowley, Charlie getting shot, and that damned book, Dean was tired. He hadn’t been this tired since he tried to out himself to Michael back in the Apocalypse days. Cas had saved him from himself then, maybe he could do it again. Maybe.

As it stood, after hearing Cas had his mojo back, the Mark quieted. Perhaps instinctively knowing that the one being who had a chance at fixing this was back on the board; the being who had a pretty good track record of pulling Dean out of the depths of hell, both literally and figuratively. Until Cas had just outed himself that was. The Mark knew Cas was at 100%, but he wasn’t… completely stable. It woke right back up then, subdued, but awake. It had been a blessed few hours of relief, he just wished it would have stayed down at least long enough for one good night’s sleep.

As it was the Mark was awake enough to inevitably start the night terrors once he was asleep. With Charlie just down the hall, Dean really didn’t want to go there. He had no intention of going to sleep tonight, it’s not like he really got all that tired these days anyway. No, instead of sleeping Dean was sitting on his bed, still wearing his day clothes, lamp on, and reading a book on Reverse Engineering Curses; because yeah, the Men of Letters had that in their book stores. It was just as much of a long shot as anything else either he or Sam had read, didn’t mean it wasn’t worth reading though.

As the night went on, Dean felt his eyes grow tired. Which in some ways was an improvement over the past couple of weeks, he still didn’t trust himself to sleep right now though. Sam and Cas being nearby was one thing…

“God Charlie, how did we drag you into this?” Dean got up and bookmarked his place. He wrote a brief note for anyone who might come looking for him.

_If I’m MIA, I probably just fell asleep in the garage._

More like he was going to crash in the backseat of Baby so he could sleep without waking anyone.

Book in hand, Dean opened his door to an uncharacteristically startled and fully dressed, trench coat and all, Angel of the Lord. Dean smiled and threw the old book in a half hazard manner on to his desk, covering the note he wrote, and opened the door to let the angel in. After a moment of indecision Cas took the invitation for what it was and walked in, Dean closing the door behind him.

Dean fell back on to the right side of the bed and patted the left side for Cas to sit down on, which he did.

“So how long were you planning on hanging out in the hallway?”

“I hadn’t planned to hang out in the hallway at all. I wanted to take a look around, but your light was on. I had been debating knocking to see if you needed assistance with sleeping. Sam said that you’re nightmares have been getting worse. And you, where were you going?”

“I was going to crash in the back of Baby, figured I’d be less likely to wake anyone.”

“So you do need help then… But do you want it?” And wasn’t that the question of the day.

“You know Cas, there was a time i’d shoot that down quicker than I’d behead a vampire.”

“I know.” Thing was, there was a lot more gray area when it came to what to decapitate lately. There was a lot of gray area where Johns good Son used to be too. The son who wouldn’t accept help if his life wasn’t in danger. The son who knew a reality of black and white, right and wrong, good and bad; that son didn’t exist anymore, not really.

“Yeah, if you don’t mind.”

“Get dressed for bed, I’ll be back in five minutes.” He didn’t even have to ask, Cas just knew now. Dean remembered the days when the simplest things confused the Angel. Some things certainly still did, but Cas had learned a lot. Some of that had undoubtedly been from Metatron’s library download, but still…

Dean got into his night wear and climbed in under the bed sheets, mulling over Metatron wondering just how the angry ball of sadistic author would get through being human with just the demon tablet. Then again he had been on earth a hell of a lot longer than most other angels, maybe aside from Gabriel? Dean hadn’t really had time to deconstruct what all Cas had mentioned. It had been like watching the Angel vomit exposition at him. It had kind of been like that during the start of dinner too. Damn it all if Charlie wasn’t stuck on the flannel. He still wasn’t sure how they had gotten from flannel to the metaphysics of vessel operation.

It had been interesting sure, especially because Cas hardly ever talked about that stuff… then again Dean supposed, he’d never had the nerve to ask in the first place.

Cas opened the door, not even bothering to knock and closed it. He was without trench coat, and without the jacket. The Mark sparked.

“You okay Cas?”

“Yes, I figured a good few hours focused staving off nightmares could be well used to also ground my ties, so to speak. Hopefully by focusing on those, watching over you won’t be so creepy.” The Mark quieted as Cas toed his shoes off, climbing next to dean, back aligned to the headboard. There’s so many thing Dean could say, so many ways to get out of how awkward this should be, but wasn’t. This wasn’t like falling asleep on the bed while watching a movie. That would at least be socially acceptable.

“Still creepy, but I am really beyond caring at this point.”

“Are you ready then?”

“In a minute… I just,” Dean sat back up, fairly certain if he didn’t ask now… he probably wouldn’t at all, “How was Bobby?” Cas smiled,

“Doing well, mostly drinking and reading classics. Happy to help and not at all surprised that we'd gotten into all of this. He… he was actually why I bothered telling you. My time up there was brief, it had to be. But Bobby had the… he reminded me where doing something for someone, but not telling them could get me. One would think I would have learned after that.” Cas was staring at the door so much that if staring could kill, the door would have been blasted into next week.

“Didn’t you get him out to find your grace?” Dean was confused, maybe he had missed something. He had probably missed something.

“No Dean, I broke him out to ask him what he knew about the mark. He knew nothing, he was just making stuff up to save his own skin. I was going to kill him. I wanted to, still do. But he said there was still some of my grace left. I took a chance.”

“A chance that paid off. Saved your life and left the douch bag on the mortal playing field. Bet he’s waxing poetic all over the place with the parallels.” Castiel snorted, then full out laughed for a few moment.

“I wouldn’t put it past him. Anything else?”

“Oh, tons. But nothing that can’t wait.”

“Okay.” Dean moved back down, head on the pillow, looking at Cas as he reached over Dean and turned the light off. He felt Castiels hand brush his forehead.

“Will you be here in the morning?” Cas’s first two fingers paused just between Dean’s eyes.

“Do you want me to be?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“If it didn’t you wouldn’t have asked.” Dean sighed,

“If you get bored, don’t feel like you have to stay.” Dean couldn’t see Cas well, just the outline of his face from the very little light that his clock gave off.

“I’ll wake you up in eight hours.” Dean balked at the thought,

“That’ll be nearly afternoon!” Undeterred, Castiel went on,

“I’ll wake you up in eight hours, and I'll be here when you open your eyes. Your brain needs the rest Dean.” Which, yeah… he really did.

“Okay.”

“Ready?”

“Yeah. Thanks,”

“Goodnight Dean.”

“Night Cas.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTW for inquiring minds, these chapters names are butchered or spliced lines from Robert Frost poems.


	4. Like Happy Bees By Day

Dean awoke to the smell of coffee. It took him a moment to figure out what the hell was wrong with his pillow though. He hadn't woken from the dead, and his spidey sense wasn't going off, so… No he just had just managed to get an odd shaped pillow… Did he fall asleep with a book?

"Dean." He froze, the previous night coming back to him.

"Was that really 8 hours?" He mumbled  
"Seven and a half actually, but I figured I'd wake you before you started another sleep cycle, you've managed three already and didn't want to wake you mid cycle."  
"Well, thanks." Waking up naturally or not, after months of hardly any sound sleep, he still had no desire to move.

"Thought you said you were waking him up."  
"Oh, he's awake. He just hasn't moved yet."

Dean blindly grabbed above his head and got an actual pillow and covered his face with it. He did not need Charlie to see him like this.

"I can see that." The smell of coffee grew stronger. "Handmaiden, I require the assistance of you and your concubine to your right." Dean flew back from his resting place, unintentionally throwing himself on to the floor. Charlie unhelpfully noted,

"Imply gay, movement results." Cas snorted.

"You know me so well." Charlie moved over to the floor. One hand holding a mug, the other extended to help him up. Completely awake now Dean took the offered assistance and the offered mug that followed. Cas had one hell of a smirk on his face to which Dean eyed suspiciously.

"How are you feeling?" Cas' smirk eased into a smile. Still a strange thing to see… And wasn't that still a sad thought.  
"Far more grounded, thank you."  
"Hmm." Dean looked back at Charlie, waiting patiently, "You mentioned requiring assistance?"  
"I did. Sam borrowed my car to go presumably mope, not entirely sure how he managed to fit inside my car, but it was hilarious and I have a picture of it for your enjoyment after you take me to Walmart hell. If I'm sticking around here I'm going to need stuff, and thus a ride. Get dressed and meet me in the kitchen... please." Dean couldn't really grasp how much this munchkin meant to him, but she really did have him wrapped around her little finger. He was man enough to admit that… To himself.

"Okay, give me 15."  
"You're the best!" She smiled then hopped her way out, closing the door behind her." All he could do was shake his head.  
"She is a great deal like you, you know."  
"Yeah, except way brighter and a hell of a lot smarter."  
"In her own way, I suppose. No one has you beat on brightness though."  
Dean sighed, opting to not pick that fight. He set the mug down for it to cool and grabbed a set of clothes and his towel.  
"Whatever you say Cas."

Dean open the door and left, leaving Cas to enjoy a moment to himself before getting up to face the day. He didn't have muscle aches as he likely would have from spending such a long amount of time in one position. Then again neither did Dean, because Cas could pull that sort of thing again, it was incredibly nice to be able to do so, not just for Dean, but for Sam and Charlie as well. He had spent most of his time fighting off any attempt the mark had made to enter Dean's subconscious, and eventually it gave up… Leading Cas to wonder if there was some sentience to the thing after all. Aside from that though, even from a distance he could check on Sam and Charlie. While he didn't have to put either of them to sleep, he did settle their subconsciousness. They had slept soundly with hardly any interference from him.

Something that had apparently disturbed Sam greatly. He had come to check on his brother, because of course he did. The look on his face when he saw Cas sitting next to his brother, who was very much using Cas as a pillow, had been amusing. The conversation that had followed was incredibly less so. Neither of them had been sleeping well for months. Sam had made the mistake of trying to wake Dean up from a mark induced nightmare once, neither of them were keen on a repeat event.

Cas had gotten a heartfelt thank you and an awkward hug out of it. Awkward because even though Cas knew he could keep Dean under enough to move away from him, he hadn't wanted to. So Sam sat next to him on the bed, looking at his brother with something akin to sorrow and relief, then hugged Cas and went on his way... to mope in a very small car? Cas had his suspicions on where he was going, but he wasnt one to judge in that department. After all, metatron may have gotten loose, but Cas had his grace back. Of the three of them, Sam had the least bad decisions under his belt, so Cas was more inclined to trust his judgment, more so than his own… Or Dean's for that matter.

Cas got up and walked to the kitchen before Dean returned to his room, idly wondering if there was more coffee to be had. Not that he needed it anymore.

He walked into the kitchen and grabbed a mug for himself and poured half a cup, exactly, because he could know and do that kind of measurement on the fly again. He turned around and leaned against the counter. Charlie was browsing something on her phone at the table, and for a moment Cas focused on the aura around her. She and Dean were likely cut of the same cloth… If he could see her soul as he could see Dean's, he wouldn't be surprised if it was nearly as bright. He wondered how it happened that the two brothers were so different, but this stranger managed to fit in so well with them both.

Charlie noticed the staring after a minute or two and looked up at him with a grin.

"What?" Cas debated telling her, but saw little harm. Indulging her curiosity could quickly become a favorite hobby for him he thought.

"Just noticing how similar your aura is to Deans. That usually indicates being cut of the same cloth. Being similar in nature."  
"Wait, what?" Castiel stared into his coffee. Again debating. She hadn't asked for what he was about to say, but he very much wanted to, so he would.  
"You've read the books correct? Even the badly edited ones Becky released online?"  
"Yeah."  
"Then you know I was the one who carried Dean out of hell and rebuilt his body."  
"Gripped him tight and raised him from perdition, yeah I remember."  
"Doing so afforded me the ability to see Dean's soul directly. Even covered in the carvings on his bones I can still see his soul when I'm near him. I can see the mark trying to burrow back in, trying to corrupt what should be incorruptible. But to see that without touching the soul directly is unheard of. All other humans are muted, and Dean is muted just the same to everyone else. Angels shouldn't see souls directly when they are in a body, but we can see the aura that surrounds them. And yours is very similar to Dean's. I assume if I couldn't see Dean's soul that his aura would be very similar to yours."

"So it's stare worthy then?" Cas didn't blush... he could control that again.  
"My apologies, I did not mean to stare at you. It's just had me wonder at the likelyhood of two people of similar nature showing up in the same generation. As much as Sam and Dean are two halves of a whole that fit together as only those who share heavens can, their souls are still incredibly unique. While plenty of people have similar natures, and similar aura's the details that angels are afforded sight into make differentiating humans very easy. When you and Dean are next to each other… it's just a strange sight to see. And… I do have a difficult time not looking at his soul, so yes. Very much stare worthy."  
"Moth to a flame, huh?"  
"Mmm… more like a dragon to a hoard of gold." Charlie burst out laughing. She was laughing for so long that he was beginning to worry he'd said something wrong. Moth to a flame indicated getting burned… Gold implied great worth. It seemed fitting didn't it? She eventually settled down.

"So… Was it Dean and his very bright soul that helped ground you, or was just some time to focus?" Cas' eye brows raised into his hairline as she chortled. He didn't really want to answer that, but…  
"Um, both. Probably." He muttered glaring into his coffee.  
"Uhuh. So... do you have dragon wings then?" Cas thought about his wings as he had not in some time. Once upon a time they had been limbs. They had been to him as an arm was to a human... now, they were just more of an afterthought. He had long since mourned the loss, but sometimes... sometimes he really missed being able to traverse galaxies in half an age. He missed feeling the wind in his light. He missed the manifestation in the physical realm, something that no angel had indulged in millennia.

"Before the fall they were more like the feathered wings of a Griffin. All things considered, throw a couple of extra heads and a few hundred eyes on a Griffin and you have a basic angel. After the fall though, they're just scabbed over skeletons now. No flight, just dead weight these days."

"Oh. I'm sorry." He realized he had never told the boys the extent of the damage, but they had never asked, and he hadn't been inclined to provide specifics. Charlie was likely the first he'd explicitly told. And she did sound truly sorry.

"Thank you, but there's nothing to be done. I suppose that's one of the reasons that trying to reattach myself has been so difficult. My wing span in its full form was as wide as I am tall. My interdimensional mass and the balance thereof is incredibly off centered."

"So dealing with a fractured and splintered cross bar as well as a change of weight that you've had since the beginning of time. Easy peasy fixing queasy." Cas shook his head at the nonsense she spoke.

"Hardly. It will take time and focus to reacquaint myself with... myself."

"Yeah and I'm going to suggest from what Sam was saying, and what you had said, that you maybe continue to do your focusing next to a sleeping Dean?" That was a narrow line to walk, but Castiel was seriously considering walking it. If they ever crossed it, so be it, but Dean had seemed agreeable to it last night, if only from exhaustion. Perhaps this was something they all needed. Rest on a regular basis.

"I'm sure we'll take it under advisement." They fell in to companionable quiet. Charlie looked back to her phone and Cas finished off his coffee and washed out his mug. When he was done he moved to sit across from Charlie, waiting on Dean who still had two minutes if his fifteen minutes was to be believed, which knowing Dean, he could very much beleive that. Cas pulled out his phone as well and prepared to spend those two minutes with funny cat videos when Charlie spoke back up, 

"Thanks for explaining as much as you have Cas. I can't deny how curious I've been about this stuff." Cas looked back up at her.

"Curiosity is one of humanities most redeeming qualities. Even when I didn't have any grace to speak of, i still didn't have it, not really. Don't ever apologize for curiosity. If you ever ask something beyond what I'm wiling to answer I'll tell you." He had existed, trying to be human when his nature was still so far from it.

"Not all humans have it either you know. Some are fine just going through life without questioning anything, without asking why, or how. Some people just drift, because they don't know what else to do. It's innate in some, learned in others, but absent in far too many."

"You've put a lot of thought into this?" Cas could surmise as much.  
"It's something I thought a lot about in Oz, and when I got back. How asking the right questions and being curious about the right things can get you answers you would never have found otherwise. It split me in two, but it won the war."

"I beleive the saying is curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back."

"That it is Cas. That it is."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There may be a bonus chapter, but this concludes the things I wanted to iron out.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if disclaimers are still a thing, but...
> 
> All this is based off of CW's Supernatural, none of it belongs to me, I'm just having unpaid hobby type fun with it.


End file.
